MacBook Pro new arrivals thread

[bpd115]

I got around 3 hours on a 75% lit screen and an uncalibrated battery on it's first charge.

using a screen around 2 or 3 bars should boost battery life a bit...need more testing....

 

[torncanvas]

"Calibrating" the battery is simply just charging it all the way up and running it all the way down. I don't think doing it a couple times in a row will hurt anything - especially since there will be plenty of times when users will run the battery all the way down and charge it back up again. Besides, I need to run the battery all the way down to see how long it's going to last.

Eventually, I'd like to use CHUD to disable a core and see how that affects battery life. Someone who has CHUD installed already can give it a shot if they want. I'm not going to do it for a little while, since I might be reformatting to make room for a Linux/Windows solution.

 

[solidbreakz]

JFB hasnt bought the machine yet, he/she can BTO the faster drive.

I was not aware of this.

Also, a person who is new to computers won't likely benefit from more than a gig of RAM, but anyone, new or not, will benefit from a faster drive.

Noted..and understood, but Rosetta PPC emulation likes RAM and lots of it, so if he/she plans to use any Adobe or Microsoft apps, etc. (which haven't been universalized) then maxing out the RAM will help. In my experience with 7200 rpm drives (I've recently installed one in my 12" PB), the response is NOT that much better than the original 5400rpm drive, but I can tell you that it sucks up more power and kills the battery noticably quicker. I used to get easily over 3.0 to 3.5 hrs on a full charge. I JUST bought a new battery last month and confirmed the same timing. After I installed the Hitachi 7200rpm drive, my times are down to 2:45-3hrs.

 

[Whiteapple]

I got my macbook this morning... and after 3 hours... my HD DIed!!!!!!!!!! OMGOMOGMOGMOGOO. i had the 7200rpm model CTO too....

Have you been an idiot like me and have crushed the HD by leaning too hard on it and heard a "crack" and the nice little multicolor wheel spinning, reboot and then "? no disk?"
i did that on my ibook, it turned out like even if alubooks get scratched, i wanted something tougher. Apple did replace it for free though. Waiting patiently for my 2,0 GHZ MPB which doesnt seem to like french horizons.

 

[oingoboingo]

that's the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life!

You need to get out more.

 

[Felldownthewell]

The apple store in Portland (There are a few mac stores but only 1 apple store I think) has MBPs in stock. I went in today to check it out (I'm getting mine in April) and all I have to say is wow. Battery life looked to be about 3hrs minimal use, brightest screen setting, but thats only what the indicator showed, no idea on what the real life time is. As said before, the screen is BRIGHT, I was looking at it next to a G4 PB and the difference was really amazing.

The other think I noticed was how fast native applications ran. Itunes started after one bounce in the dock, as did safari. (a split second faster than a 2.5 G5 quad with 6.5BG of RAM, which they had close by; you may not believe me but its true!) I opened garage band on the PB and the MB at exactly the same time and the MB was considerably faster, maybe 10-15 seconds.

They didn't have any pro apps loaded on yet, so I wasn't able to test Photoshop and Final cut (word is FCP will be universal next month), but I was told they'll have them on soon. I did load up Word and Powerpoint, and they loaded quite quickly, but not as quick as the native apps.

As a final "Snappiness" test, I loaded all the native apps in the dock at the same time (Itunes, safari, mail, garage band, iphoto, imovie) and watched in amazment as they loaded quickly, one right after another. I was impressed.

The machine I used was 2.0ghz, 1gb RAM, HD speed unknown.

It looks like an awesome machine, my only worry is battery life, but we will know about that in time.

Congrats to all who got theirs and sorry to that one guy whos HD broke.

 

[chaos86]

fyi, macworld has put out their first review of the 2.0ghz MBP.
http://www.macworld.com/2006/02/firstlooks/macbookfirstlook/index.php

interesting: playing a dvd with no energy saving, the powerbook lasted 4 minutes longer than the macbook pro. so the battery life really is about the same.